Wednesday, November 28, 2012

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, November 26, 2012 - The Committee to Protect
Journalists today condemned the murder of Brazilian journalist Eduardo
Carvalho in Campo Grande, the capital of Mato Grosso do Sul state, which
borders Paraguay and Bolivia. Carvalho was the editor and owner of news
website Última Hora News, which frequently denounced local corruption,
according to news reports.

"The period since President Dilma Rousseff took office has been the
deadliest two years for the Brazilian press since CPJ began documenting
cases in 1992," said Carlos Lauría, CPJ's senior program coordinator for
the Americas. "Authorities must take action now to guarantee that
journalists can report without fear of reprisal, by bringing
journalists' murderers to justice and breaking the deadly cycle of
impunity."

Carvalho was arriving home Wednesday night with his wife when an
unidentified man on the back of a motorcycle shot at him at least three
times, according to news reports. The journalist's wife retrieved a gun
that Carvalho carried and attempted to fire at the assailants but the
gun was locked, according to news reports. The gunman and the motorcycle
driver fled the scene.

Carvalho, a former military police officer, frequently wrote
critical reports about the local police and politicians, according to
Última Hora News. The website reported that the journalist was
authorized to carry a gun because he had been threatened and survived an
assassination attempt. Police officials told reporters that Carvalho
had been the subject of many libel lawsuits related to his reporting.
His most recent story, published the day of his murder, accused an
unnamed military police official of abusing his authority to intimidate
local citizens. Local police chief Divino Furtado Mendonça told
reporters that while no motive had been ruled out, police would
principally investigate whether the murder was related to Carvalho's
journalistic work, according to news reports.

Ten other journalists, most of them outside of major urban centers,
have been murdered in Brazil in 2011 and 2012, at least six in direct
relation to their work, according to CPJ research. Brazil appeared on
CPJ's Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where journalists are
murdered regularly and the killers go free, for the second consecutive
year in 2012.

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